Sorry if that just put Staind in your head (and sorry if apologizing for putting Staind in your head put Staind in your head).

Soon after we started dating, my husband and I agreed that once every couple months, we should take a weekend to ourselves. Since it’s hard not to get distracted by the mundane and domestic when we stay home, this turned into us taking regular trips around the Midwest.

What with getting married and then taking a couple trips abroad, we put a pin in weekend getaways last year. And this year has been off to a slow start. We put off taking a trip because of the weather and because of [mumbles something indistinct]. But we’d been wanting to take a trip to Milwaukee for a while now and decided to bite the bullet and go already.

So we rented a car and headed up after work on a Friday. We reached in good time but decided to take it easy and just grab dinner at a place close to the hotel called The Rumpus Room.

We started Saturday off at Colectivo Coffee. Then wandered around the Third Ward and did some shopping. After stopping by the Bronze Fonze, we had a picnic lunch of cheese from the Wisconsin Cheese Mart and sausage from Usingers outside the gorgeous Milwaukee Art Museum (where there was a large gathering of prom attendees taking pictures). Then we wandered through the fascinating exhibit on Ebony Fashion Fair. For dinner, we took it easy and had take out from the Wisconsin Cheese Mart’s Tap Room in our hotel.

             

Sunday morning, we had brunch at The Knick. Before heading back to Chicago, we stopped at The Domes. We had been considering skipping that and ended up being very glad that we didn’t.

    

It was a really lovely weekend. The weather cooperated (finally) and we felt refreshed and reconnected. It was a good reminder that these trips are really worth it.